# Is "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Alfred, Lord Tennyson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Edward Moxon, 1850) is identified by: Published anonymously, with no author's name on the title page, under the Latin sub-heading "A.H.H.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Published anonymously, with no author's name on the title page, under the Latin sub-heading "A.H.H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII." First edition, first issue carries the misprint "the sullen tree" (for "thee, sullen tree") on page 2, and the misprint "baseness" for "bareness" on page 198; both are silently corrected in the second and third editions issued the same year, which otherwise closely reset the same text
- First-issue copies have an 8-page Moxon catalogue dated February 1850 bound in at the front
- Publisher imprint reads Edward Moxon
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Publisher | Edward Moxon |
| Year | 1850 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Published anonymously, with no author's name on the title page, under the Latin sub-heading "A.H.H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII." First edition… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Published anonymously, with no author's name on the title page, under the Latin sub-heading "A.H.H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII." First edition, first issue carries the misprint "the sullen tree" (for "thee, sullen tree") on page 2, and the misprint "baseness" for "bareness" on page 198; both are silently corrected in the second and third editions issued the same year, which otherwise closely reset the same text. First-issue copies have an 8-page Moxon catalogue dated February 1850 bound in at the front.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The second and third editions of 1850 read almost identically to the first apart from the corrected misprints, so a copy must be checked against these specific textual points, not merely the 1850 date, to confirm first-edition status; later Moxon and successor printings that print Tennyson's name on the title page post-date the anonymous first issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *In Memoriam A.H.H.* by Alfred, Lord Tennyson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/in-memoriam-ahh
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.